Henryk Erlich

"ERLICH, HENRYK (Wolf Hersh; 1882–1941), journalist; leader of the *Bund in Poland. Erlich was born of a well-to-do family in Lublin; his father was a Ḥasid who became a maskil and a Ḥovev Zion. Having joined the Bund in 1903 while a student at the University of Warsaw, Erlich was arrested several times for revolutionary activities and expelled from the university. Later he graduated in law from the University of St. Petersburg and became a member of the central committee of the Bund. After the 1917 revolution he was a leading figure in the Petrograd (Leningrad) Workers' Soviet. In October 1918 he returned to Warsaw, becoming prominent in the Bund, and editor of the party's Yiddish daily Di Folkstsaytung. He was a member of the Warsaw city council and the kehillah board, and participated in numerous international socialist congresses. On the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 Erlich left Warsaw with his family, and in October was arrested by the Soviet authorities. With Victor *Alter he was accused of active subversion and helping Polish intelligence, and was condemned to death; the sentence was later commuted to ten years' hard labor. In September 1941, following the amnesty for all convicted Polish citizens in Soviet Russia, Erlich and Alter were set free. After their release they were approached by Soviet representatives to join a Jewish anti-Fascist committee. However, in the early morning of Dec. 4, 1941, they were again arrested in Kuibyshev. Erlich and Alter were executed shortly after their arrest "for hostile activities, including appeals to the Soviet troops to stop bloodshed and immediately conclude peace with Germany." The executions aroused worldwide protests by Labor and Liberal organizations." -- Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2007

"ALTER, VICTOR (1890–1941), leader of the *Bund in Poland. Alter was born in Mlawa, Poland, into a wealthy ḥasidic family. He graduated as an engineer in 1910, in Liège, Belgium. In 1912 he became active in the Bund in Warsaw. Exiled to Siberia for his political activities, he later escaped. During World War I, Alter found employment in England, as a laborer and then as an engineer. He returned to Poland after the February Revolution in 1917 and became a member of the central committee of the Bund. Between 1919 and 1939 Alter was one of the prominent leaders of the Bund and Jewish trade unions in Poland. He was a Warsaw city councilor for almost 20 years, and after 1936 a member of the board of the Jewish community. After the Germans invaded Poland in September 1939, Alter escaped to the Russian-occupied zone. However, he was soon arrested with his associate, Henryk Erlich. They were both executed on December 4, 1941, in Kuibyshev. Alter wrote Tsu der Yidnfrage in Poiln ("The Jewish Problem in Poland," 1927) and Anti-semitizm w Swietle Cyfr ("Anti-Semitism in the Light of Statistics," 1937)." -- Encyclopaedia Judaica, 2007

Newspaper clippings, a book review, and an issue of Jewish Labor Bund Bulletin dedicated to Henryk Erlich and Victor Alter on 10th anniversary of their death.